Do you think a series of acquittals (or the much less likely dropping of all charges) would constitute a blow against racial hierarchy?
I mean, I haven't heard anyone seriously argue that the Jena defendants did not, in fact, attach Justin Barker as a group and kick him into a coma.
In that respect, they're somewhere beyond O.J. on the Scottsboro Boys - O.J. spectrum. And while a few kooks might claim that O.J.'s acquittal was an anti-racist victory, nobody takes them seriously.
There's more than enough racial inequity to protest in what passes for our criminal justice system. I only wish that those who are doing it now had chosen less loathsome poster children. [JC]
Have you been hit in the fucking head? The civil authorities had already made it clear that there would be no justice for these young black men within the confines of the legal system. Hang up nooses as a threat? That's OK. Beat one of them up at a party? That's mostly OK. Threaten some of these young men with a lethal weapon? That's OK. Apparently white kids threatening people with guns is acceptable but wresting an offensively drawn weapon away from someone is a crime in Jena. Provided the gun is owned by a white and taken from the assailant by a non-white. When some of these kids respond by beating up one of the white students involved in the beating of a black student you compare them to O.J.? Maybe if the authorities had arrested this fucker for his two previous crimes no one would have beaten the poor lad a little. I consider the nooses and the gun display crimes but the fights, both of them, were just fights. If the young black men had been given the same punishment for fighting as the young white man Justin Sloan, that is, probation for a simple battery charge, that may have ended this for now.
Oddly, for a kid in a coma, the beaten young man attended a party that same evening. Must have been a "light coma" as they say. (He was not in a coma Joe. Whoever told you that lied. You should stay away from right-wing news sources if you wish to avoid looking foolish)
They committed nothing but a standard high school fight. Hardly to be encouraged but not exactly O.J. territory. To call them "loathsome" is rather disgusting and racist Mr. Catron and I do hope an apology is in order soon. The only truly loathsome behaviour here was the hanging of the nooses, the DA threatening the black students, and the horrendous charges against these young men. The rest is certainly less than admirable but hardly loathsome. Get a grip dude.
John Thornton